Militants free 238 captive soldiers in Waziristan

WANA—As many as 238 security men, who were abducted from South Waziristan, have been released on Sunday. According to the sources, these security men have been released more than two months ago on August 30, when they were en route from Wana and Shakai to Laddah in South Waziristan. It was said the release was made possible under the exchange plan of prisoners with Taliban after the successful Jirga was held, as at least 29 local Taliban were released in return for these security personnel. However, there is no official confirmation of the release of these local Taliban.
Taliban militants freed 238 troops on Sunday after holding them captive since late August in a tribal region near the Afghan border, officials and the military said. The militants handed over the soldiers to tribal elders in South Waziristan, a mountainous Taliban stronghold where they were captured on August 30 after their supply convoy was trapped by a landslide.
“The soldiers have returned to their camp in South Waziristan,” Major-General Waheed Arshad said. A cleric, Maulana Siraj-ud-din, head of the group of tribal elders that negotiated with the militants, told reporters the troops were handed over to authorities in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
Fighters led by Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud had demanded the release of some captured comrades and the withdrawal of troops from their tribal lands in exchange for the soldiers’ freedom. Arshad said South Waziristan authorities had released some people detained under tribal laws, but that paramilitary troops were still deployed in the area.
The soldiers’ release came a day after President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in country, citing rising terrorism and extremism among his reasons. Security situation has deteriorated sharply since July, when commandos stormed the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, to crush a Taliban-style movement.
Nearly 800 people have been killed in militant-linked violence since then, including more than 23 suicide attacks. A November 1 suicide attack on an Air Force bus killed eight people, while seven died two days earlier when a bomber blew himself up less than a kilometer from Musharraf’s army residence in the garrison town of Rawalpindi.
A suicide bomb attack in Karachi killed 139 people at a procession on October 19 to mark the return from self-imposed exile of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
211 personnel of Security Forces held by the militants returned to Wana Sunday alongwith members of the tribal Jirga, a ISPR Press release said here today.—Agencies